N. Krishnamurthy

I had a visitor the other day: head of a company that has a few specialty business divisions, including Oncology. I asked him: what brings you to Bangalore so often? And he said he has been personally visiting Bangalore once a month for the last 4 months, with a view to visit a large Cancer hospital, to win the account. It was yet to happen. That set me thinking. It is obvious that Specialty business…

I have been associated with the Pharma industry globally, for a number of years now, as the CEO of a company that is focused on providing CRM and SFE solutions to the Industry. When I look around, three things strike me. Large ERP vendors who also have a CRM, do not seem to succeed as much in the CRM space, as in the ERP space. SAP is an example. Most leading Pharma companies use a…

In the Pharma industry, when it comes to software solutions, I have seen these two terms, being used interchangeably. Is that correct? Can all vendors providing solutions to the industry’s sales force, claim that their solutions are SFE solutions? CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management SFE stands for Sales Force Effectiveness To me, an MR or Area Manager or anyone in the sales organization needs to have good Customer Relations to be effective, but that…

Governments all over the world are increasing the regulatory aspects governing ethical promotion of pharmaceutical products to healthcare professionals. It is no different in India. In this backdrop, Continuing Medical Education (CME) is gaining more and more importance, and hence the need to maximize ROI on CME s through use of software and technology “Continuing medical education consists of educational activities which serve to maintain, develop, or increase the knowledge, skills, and professional performance and…

There is so much talk of Digital Customer Engagement and Alternate Customer Engagement channels these days. It makes me wonder how companies can talk of any one channel independent of others. To my mind, we need to look at enabling a Pharma company to operate all channels of engagement with a doctor, not just digital or otherwise. For Pharma companies, their priority now, is to meaningfully engage doctors in a professional non-intrusive manner, whereby, doctors…

I was recently asked by a National Sales Manager of a Pharma company, a question that I have been pondering about. He asked me: With all the new technology and social media coming in, will the role of MR s diminish? Will there be a time when MR s may not be needed at all? I was reminded of the much talked about “Death of a Pharma Salesman” paradigm. For a few years now, we…

Over the last several years, I have had close connections with Indian Medical Devices and Pharma industries. While Pharma industry has a choice of CRM software solutions, Indian medical devices industry seems to have struggled to find the right software solutions. First, let us understand the categories within medical devices industry. We can broadly classify the industry into 4 segments. Industry segmentation: Consumables: All the consumable products that hospitals use, from Cotton to Surgical sutures….

It is not often that we can talk about waves of automation that come in such quick succession. That is what is happening in Pharma CRM and SFE space. The time gap between these developments is reducing rapidly, throwing significant challenges to the software industry that serves Pharma. “ Traditionally, Pharma has been slower than FMCG in IT adoption. However, things are changing rapidly now. We are ready to absorb anything in IT that can…

US Pharma industry has always been open to adopting state of art technology solutions to improve sales force effectiveness. Many large companies have adopted multiple solutions to address all their needs around CRM. They are however realizing that the total cost of ownership (TCOs) of the software investments made, are getting to be disproportionate to the benefits derived. This, combined with the fact that product margins are under severe pressure (partly due to onslaught from…

UCPMP, (Uniform Code for Pharmaceuticals Marketing Practices) is a subject that has been around for over one and a half years now. This was issued by Dept of pharmaceuticals in Dec 2014 and is meant to be adopted by Pharma companies voluntarily. Since Dec 2014, there has been an expectation in the industry that this will transition into an ACT on the lines of two highly powerful acts in the US i.e. Prescription Drug Marketing…